What it does

MCP lets an agent connect to an external MCP server and pull in its tools, resources, and prompts. In Copilot Studio (now generally available) you add an MCP server and its published tools become available to the agent automatically.

Key facts

• Connects agents to MCP servers exposing tools (actions), resources (readable data), and prompt templates.
• Generally available in Copilot Studio; tool listing and tracing show which server and tool ran at runtime.
• Tools and resources update dynamically — change the server, and Copilot Studio reflects it without a rebuild.
• Microsoft also ships Agent 365 MCP servers exposing M365 workloads (Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Dataverse and more) as auditable tools.
• Server auth and network reachability are your responsibility.

When to use / skip

Use when you want to reuse an existing MCP server, or standardise tool access across multiple agents and hosts. Skip if you only need one API — a single API plugin is simpler than standing up MCP.

Configuration decisions

• Which MCP server(s), and their auth (keys, OAuth).
• Which tools/resources to surface vs suppress.
• How you host and secure the server if it's your own.

Gotchas

• Dynamic tool changes are convenient but mean the agent's capabilities can shift under you — govern the server, not just the agent.
• Network and auth are where connections fail; test reachability from the runtime, not your laptop.
• Tool descriptions still drive selection quality, same as API plugins.

Consultant notes

• MCP is the direction of travel for interoperability — worth standardising on if you're building several agents.
• Governance shifts to the server: whoever controls it controls what your agents can do, so treat that as a trust boundary.
• Watch cost and rate limits on whatever the tools call downstream; MCP doesn't remove those.

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Review as MCP support spreads beyond Copilot Studio into the M365 declarative agent path.